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Hi! I have a small F2P game and currently think about adding pvp into it (for now it has only pve campain). In this game players have characters, who have items and class powers. Also players have potions (one-time items). Characters act one by one, and either use item, or class power. Also character can use one potion during his turn. These actions can lead to killing allies/enemies, when all enemies die, you win.

My goal is to create rewards that will both make multiplayer interesting and will motivate users to donate. I came up with some ideas, but none of them fully satisfies me.

These ideas are:

for victory give characters rank points (additional to exp points), and lock powerful items in shop based on char's rank (and make these items cost a lot).

Cons: May ruin pve campain if players' characters will use such powerful items.

for victory give unique potions.

Pros: wont ruin pve campain.

Cons: not sure if it will motivate players. For example, if players need to use potions to win, they may think that they will lose more than gain if they win and wont play pvp at all. Or will play it without any interest in buying potions/equipment to win (= no profit).

increase/decrease "morale" for win\fail. During pvp battles chars will "chat" with each others. Characters with high morale will say something like "Yarr!", "We will dominate!", "Are you brazilian? Cause I am german" etc, and characters with low morale will say something like "PLease I want to go home", "I pray to get an arrow in my knee" etc.

Pros: funny; does not affect gameplay, so it's more newbie-friendly; emotionally motivates players to win (=motivates to donate to buy potions/equipment).

Cons: may be too much humiliating for losers? May be it's not that motivating?

At this point I'm stuck and need your help. What do you think about it? Is there any better options to design rewards in pvp?

Not that this is a hard and fast rule, but follow the example of many recently successful games and stick primarily to vanity rewards. I'll try to explain briefly:

The value of a mechanical reward that you can give is almost always scaling with the balance of your PvE encounters. In other words, if it's good enough that players really want it, then it's good enough that it introduces issues of power creep into PvP. Winners win more prizes which they use to win more matches and more prizes, and on and on.

On the other hand, if the value is insignificant, then the motivation to earn it is equally insignificant. Extrinsic mechanical rewards just aren't especially sustainable in PvP.

However, players will often value vanity items irrespective of any mechanical value. These could be achievements, titles, collectibles, cosmetic upgrades, etc. Hero Academy just gives players an extra "Taunt" for winning, which produces an animation which taunts the opponent and then is consumed.

There are lots of things you can consider; for more ideas try searching for vanity/cosmetic rewards.